The Last of Us Part 2 - Before You Buy

and we're back with another episode of before you buy that show we give you some straight-up gameplay and our first impressions of the latest games releasing as usual it's me your uncle Jake Baldino I'm not actually your uncle but today we're talking about the Last of Us part 2 oh boy where to begin I will say thank you guys for your patience with this one even if you might hate me after this one I know a lot of you guys rely on these videos but I had to get through all of it to see this game and really give it a chance I'll be talking about the game itself and not really as much about any controversies just the game also keeping in mind I will not talk specific spoilers and I'm not showing much in gameplay only mostly early-ish sequences but keep in mind it's gonna be hard to talk around spoilers you know at least to get my point across so I'm gonna be dancing around some things so be warned I'm not showing spoilers but I'm showing a bit more than the average review from the big websites because they were kind of limited with what they could show I can now show whatever so watch at your own risk now my biggest problem after the Last of Us have game I really loved is that I didn't really need a sequel so the hardest mountain this game had to climb for me personally was justifying its existence well believe it or not and I may be going against the mob here a bit I think it's a pretty good game there's some story stuff up for debate and some gameplay issues that bothered me quite a bit actually a little bit more than the story I'll get to those in a bit rest assured this is another you know rollicking and entertaining Last of Us style adventure and it's a good interesting time and know nobody's paying me to say that I'm here to give you some guidance but ultimately decide for yourself on this one anyway jumping right in it's a few years after the first game Joel Joel's brother Tommy Ellie etc they're all settled in Jackson Wyoming the really well put together survival colony you get adjusted to life here you get to really see this very well thought out and design place and how it all thrives and it's really interesting that is of course until stuff happens and Ellie goes out on a new adventure as one of the main playable characters this is a big-ass massive lengthy adventure spanning multiple time periods and multiple playable characters it's not like a journey across America like the original game and that's something I loved and I did really miss here but the big focus is mainly on Seattle it's the main location pretty much and Seattle in the last of us universe is an absolute hellhole collapsing in on itself think of basically some of the most horrendous locations from the first game the hairiest stuff where things were really chaotic and that's really what the last of us part two is almost all of the time that's not to say it's all action you know this is still a single-player story focused game through and through you know the thing that so many players say we still don't get enough of I'm happy to say that there's tons of story and dialogue and long contemplative moments where the game takes its time developing the characters and the plot and stuff lots of cutscenes lots of characters especially quite a few from the original game who get some really cool moments to shine in ways you wouldn't expect the gameplay is surprisingly extremely close to the first game maybe it's just because I just came off playing through the original game again but despite some big additions the moment-to-moment gameplay feels pretty similar which isn't a bad thing I don't know yeah it's almost survival harsh especially on the higher difficulties as you just kind of scrounge and rummage for supplies endlessly crafting throwable and melee weapons and then you battle human and clicker enemies combat is of course desperate and so what makes these games pretty great every gunshot is a loud scary crack every hit is devastating you're always down to one last bullet people fight dirty it's a desperate battle for survival and it can really have some tense moments you know encounter areas are much bigger giving you more opportunity for stealth unfortunately there are only a few new tools on the stealth side otherwise you're still always just kind of tossing bottles and bricks just always doing that to a clicker or a human almost to a comical level I was really hoping for a bit more new stuff on the stealth side other than them just adding dogs that can track your scent which I will say does shake it up but they're only used sparingly but I was hoping for more I wanted more tools on the stealth side cuz Ellie can now go prone and crawl around and hide in tall grass and it works really really well but it's one of the few things that feels new besides Ellie's always having a knife so you don't have the craft SHIVs which is really convenient also there's a jump button I know people were talking about that but it's absolutely useless unless it's for a specific section but Ellie's faster so she can kind of quickly lose enemies by slipping through tight areas so you're less bulky you can move around quicker but you're mostly boiling it down to just doing the same thing sneaking up grabbing dudes and monsters from behind and then slowly choking them out or stabbing them in the neck over and over and over again rinse and repeat and many of the enemies their AI can still come off a bit dumb you know they're still effective and now they know each other's names and they'll call out more stuff seems like there's more intelligence sometimes they can hunt you down but occasionally like I said you still have moments of manipulating them and awkwardly making them seem dumb and getting the upper hand really this is an incredibly lengthy game and my biggest issue is that the gameplay loses impact over the course of it there's tons of variety and it's well paced but every enemy scenario by the last like third of the game or so I was really getting tired of choking people out over and over again it's the same few animations and you lose the impact of the incredibly realistic and disturbing deaths and it kind of just becomes a thing to do maybe that's the point you know story and theme wise okay I get it but from a play perspective by the end it outstayed its welcome a little bit I was more into the story than the moment-to-moment gameplay I was like alright I want to get to the next story bit thankfully it does at least try to shake it up you know there are only a few new enemy types on the clicker side but it makes things pretty interesting I will say the game really capitalizes on the horror and dread you know the first game had that great like like pit of your stomach type feeling that you get I was worried that they wouldn't be able to replicate and nail that feel again but I'm happy that they really did there are some incredible horror moments here and I don't think people talk about the last of a series as a horror genre enough also on the new side there are some pretty great and fun new weapons that I won't spoil and the game kind of does the Uncharted Lost legacy thing where it'll occasionally throw you an open environment to cruise around and explore and do little side objective areas they all feel substantial though all those little side things and let me tell you they are vital you get important equipment by doing the side stuff the game rewards exploration really well the weapon upgrades are a bit more exciting visually this time around they put a ton of work into that but the skill tree thing is really satisfying like the first game you pick up supplements to dump points in to skill perk type things like more health better crafting stuff like that but this time it's blown out into multiple branches of different types of expertise and it lets you kind of focus and build where you want quite a bit it's not like a full-on RPG but it made dumping points into your characters much more interesting and actively engaging for the long haul and I was super impressed and happy with it you guys know me like I'm a progression nerd and for a story game like this the consistency in the weapon upgrades and the character upgrades hit that perfect sweet spot for me story-wise the story makes some big bold divisive moves many of your favorite video games and movies series have tried this before results may often vary but I appreciate attempts and the Last of Us 2 for me there's a couple big story things and about 70% of it really works for me the remaining 30% doesn't quite it's gonna be up to the individual person and fan there were a couple of things I wasn't into but I did not take it as the end of the world as the Last of Us fan you spend a lot of time with a lot of characters in this game literally walking miles in their shoes for hours and hours and it earns a lot of the stuff it tries to do it seems more effective if you really put the time in an experience at all of course this is all gonna be down to personal tastes and preferences different strokes for different folks I'm trying to be reasonably here also it's hands-down one of the best looking games I've ever seen which is crazy to have that come out of my mouth I play primarily on PC but I was still so blown away here the graphics are powerful but coupled with some incredible art and environment design the game really is a sight to behold I find myself so much in this game it actually took much longer to complete because I would walk through sections instead of sprinting just so I could look around that's what I kind of loved about the first game and I loved it here too also characters look incredible you get the emotions in their faces like all these things the actors are trying to play off consistently every time because all of the performances are rock-solid and plus if we're talking audio-visual side-eye I also found myself digging the music a lot even a bit more than the first game especially for the scarier moments which like I said the game does have a nice amount of also there are tons of options the last of us gameplay can really shine if you turn off the HUD and crank up the difficulty if you feeling nasty and it's a good challenging video game fun time and since I'm talking about options there's also a lot of different adjustments and stuff for accessibility so if you have certain functional issues with your hands or maybe you're colorblind you can still experience the game and that's pretty cool really as a whole with the smaller gameplay complaints and a couple of story misses I still chalk this game up as an overall win it doesn't match the sweet kind of simplicity of the original game but it tries to do more and go bigger and I commend him for it so even if I think it doesn't quite reach the heights of the first game this was still a hell of a ride and I was glad to play through it and I'm looking forward to playing through it again because there's a lot to chew on it's consistently interesting there's a lot of world-building going on in the background and it's just a big old triple a video game adventure almost do an excessive degree but it's a heck of an achievement and it's like incredibly lengthy and pretty satisfying and of course this is a before you buy I'm gonna wrap it up this is how it goes down I give you some pros some cons and some personal opinion so of course now we want to hear yours down in the comments let us know what you think of the game if you've played it if you've experienced it what do you think of the characters new and old what do you think of the environments the new enemy types do you have gameplay issues like me or such as me and my being a hard-ass let's talk about anything The Last of Us and the Last of Us - down in the comments things get a little crazy though so if you want to yell at me directly find me on Twitter and Instagram at Jacob Alvino but of course thank you for watching we really appreciate how much you guys show up for our before you byes personally I put a ton of blood and sweat into these videos so I do appreciate you guys showing up for the last couple of years now we've been making these videos for so long but if you enjoyed it or found it useful clicking the like buttons the best way you can help us out and if you're new maybe consider subscribing because we put out videos every single day but as always thanks for watching we'll see you guys next time you

Channel: gameranx

Views: 1,896,985

Keywords: the last of us part II, the last of us part 2, the last of us 2, the last of us before you buy, before you buy the last of us, tlou2 before you buy, the last of us part II before you buy, tlou2 review, the last of us part II review, the last of us ps4 pro gameplay, the last of us 2 gameplay, the last of us part 2 joel, the last of us ellie, gameranx, before you buy, jake baldino, before you buy the last of us: part 2, before you buy the last of us: part II

Id: BeI9MeYoka4

Length: 11min 42sec (702 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 20 2020